Final American Assault on Star Fort

# The Final Assault on Star Fort at Ninety Six

By the spring of 1781, the American war for independence in the Southern states had become a grueling contest of attrition, strategy, and will. Major General Nathanael Greene, the Continental Army commander in the South, had undertaken a bold campaign to reclaim British-held outposts scattered across South Carolina. Though Greene had lost several pitched battles, his strategic brilliance lay in wearing down the British by forcing them to defend far-flung positions they could scarcely afford to garrison. One of the most important of these positions was the fortified Loyalist stronghold at Ninety Six, a remote settlement in the South Carolina backcountry that had served as a center of British and Loyalist influence for years. Commanding the garrison there was Lieutenant Colonel John Harris Cruger, a capable and determined New York Loyalist officer who led a force composed primarily of Provincial troops fiercely loyal to the Crown.

Greene arrived at Ninety Six in late May 1781 and laid siege to the fortification, hoping to starve or batter the garrison into submission before British reinforcements could arrive. The centerpiece of Cruger's defenses was the Star Fort, an earthen fortification whose pointed, star-shaped walls were designed to eliminate blind spots and allow defenders to pour crossfire on any attackers. Greene's engineers, led by the Polish volunteer Colonel Thaddeus Kosciuszko, directed the construction of approach trenches and a siege tower, slowly tightening the noose around the garrison. Cruger, however, proved a resourceful adversary. He ordered his men to raise the walls of the Star Fort with sandbags, conducted daring nighttime sorties to disrupt American siege works, and kept the morale of his defenders remarkably high despite dwindling supplies and the constant pressure of Greene's lines drawing ever closer.

As the siege dragged into June, Greene received alarming intelligence that Lord Francis Rawdon, the aggressive young British general commanding Crown forces in the South Carolina interior, had assembled a relief column and was marching rapidly toward Ninety Six. Rawdon's force, bolstered by fresh reinforcements recently arrived from the British Isles, threatened to trap Greene between the garrison and a formidable field army. With time running out and the relief column only days away, Greene made the difficult decision to launch a direct assault on the Star Fort on June 18, 1781, gambling that a bold stroke could capture the position before Rawdon arrived.

The attack was entrusted to two columns of handpicked soldiers, led by Lieutenants Samuel Duval and Isaac Hatton. These men advanced under heavy fire toward the steep earthen walls of the Star Fort, carrying long poles fitted with iron hooks designed to pull down the sandbag parapets that Cruger's men had built. The fighting that erupted was among the most savage of the entire siege. As the Americans reached the ditch surrounding the fort, Cruger's Loyalists met them with bayonets, musket fire, and sheer ferocity. Hand-to-hand combat raged in the narrow confines of the ditch and along the parapet. A few American soldiers managed to breach the walls and momentarily enter the fort itself, but they were overwhelmed and driven back. Lieutenant Hatton was among those killed in the desperate struggle, and casualties on the American side were significant.

The assault had failed, and Greene was forced to accept the bitter reality. When Rawdon's relief column drew near only days later, Greene lifted the siege and withdrew his army, having spent nearly a month in the effort. Though the outcome was a tactical defeat for the Americans, the siege of Ninety Six fit into Greene's larger strategy of exhausting British resources and forcing them to consolidate their positions. Rawdon, recognizing that Ninety Six was too isolated to defend indefinitely, ultimately evacuated the post and pulled his forces back toward the coast. In this sense, Greene's campaign achieved its broader objective even in defeat. The struggle at the Star Fort stands as a testament to the tenacity of both sides and to the often-overlooked ferocity of the Revolutionary War in the Southern backcountry, where neighbor fought neighbor and the line between victory and defeat was measured in blood and perseverance.